Many voters are asking why there seems to be so much infighting in the Republican Party, and liberals appear to be elated because they think the division will aid their candidates’ success. But which is worse: the Democrats owning their consistently proven failures in policy, or them being able to count on the support of their center-left colleagues with an “R” beside their name, and then later being able to blame the constitutional conservative hold-outs for those failures? Is the future of our country really based on the battle between team red and team blue? Or is it really a battle between those who want to preserve the American Dream for future generations, and career “yes-men” whose primary goals are to get elected and re-elected, with the interests of the American people taking a distant third?
Freshman Republican Rep. Dave Joyce snagged a 10 point victory over his more conservative challenger Matt Lynch on Tuesday in Ohio’s 14th District primary, and his supporters have been gloating incessantly ever since. But who are his supporters? According to Heritage Action for America, a watchdog group that rates whether Congress members are conservative, his voting record is a pathetic 48%. Whose side is he really on? The Democrat that Joyce will face in November, Michael Wager, obviously feared Lynch more that he did Joyce. He ran cable TV ads that attacked Lynch as “too extreme for Ohio.” Ohio’s 14th district is not likely to go to a Democrat, that’s the likely reason Wager was not challenged in a primary. He is a sacrificial lamb. So the efforts of the Democrats went into assuring the candidate THEY can count on won the primary. The good news is, Joyce only won by a paltry 10 points, even though he grossly outspent Lynch with the money he received from special interest groups like Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, The American Hospital Association, and The U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Lynch’s campaign spent all of $75,000, and Joyce’s spent $2 million, proving that passionate people on the street can compete with special interest money.
The North Carolina Senate primary was a different story. While we supported Dr. Greg Brannon in the primary and felt he was the constitutional conservative in the race, Senator Kay Hagan must be defeated. As Speaker of the North Carolina State House, Rep. Thom Tillis boldly pushed through tax cuts. He is on record as opposing amnesty, supporting Voter I.D., and he is very conservative when it comes to entitlements, having opposed Medicaid expansion in North Carolina. In this race, it seems Tillis was the one challenger Senator Kay Hagan was worried about, considering SHE invested in radio attack ads falsely claiming that he favored Obamacare.
However, Tillis also received funds and endorsements from establishment Republicans like Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and even Mitt Romney, whose goals are far from being Constitutionally Conservative. Conservative First will watch Mr. Tillis closely to make sure he sticks to the conservative principles he held as North Carolina Speaker, and doesn’t sell out to the establishment for political expediency.
Conservative voters need to pay closer attention to the Republican primaries. Many of the Republicans in Congress today would have run as Democrats less than 20 years ago. Since the end of the Cold War, the Democrats have pushed increasingly to adopt the policies of the collectivist ideology that we defeated, and the Republican establishment has made a decisive move to the middle. Liberals continue to claim that Republicans need to be MORE pragmatic and moderate if they want to win elections. But will any of those who are entrenched in team blue ever vote for a Republican? To take their advice would be like allowing the opposing team’s coach to call our team’s plays in a football game. There are not enough well-versed Independent voters to change the outcome of an election based on the Republican candidate being “too conservative.” Is it better to let the left OWN their failures, or do we prefer to make the Republican move to the center permanent by supporting those failures for political expediency?
It’s not too late to return the Republican Party to its conservative roots. Tuesday’s primaries were two battles in a long, long war. The GOP establishment won handily this time, but they did so by lower margins than they have in many years, while at the same time campaigning harder than they have ever had to. In the end, their victories are the results of better finances, which is not a sustainable strategy. The conservative movement is not “dying” as the liberal media likes to claim. It’s gaining traction, and after five years it still has the GOP establishment running scared.
